The accomplished sampled instrument developer has released two instruments for free and you can download them today. Here's what you need to know.

LONDON, UK: Spitfire Audio is proud to launch LABS — an infinite series of software instruments, free and easy to use; made by musicians in London for anyone, anywhere — with the popular Soft Piano and a new Strings library available as of May 31. You can download them for free today from www.spitfireaudio.com.

While Spitfire Audio continues its collaborations with the world’s best composers, producers, engineers and studios to create detailed and realistic recordings of instruments and sounds for use in computer-based music production, LABS lets loose a new series of tools that retain that dedication to quality but altogether remove the barrier to entry by offering a simplistic solution to music-making — instantly-playable, great-sounding instruments, all at no cost!

Commencing with the popular Soft Piano — based around a felted piano (originally recorded in October 2008 by Nick Taylor at Air-Edel Recording Studios in Marylebone, central London using two Schoeps CMC 5/U microphones with MK4 capsules that are still there to this day) — and Strings — a new string ensemble (recorded in October 2017 at Spitfire Audio’s London HQ, where one of the microphones used was a BBC AXB1, an iconic 1940s-vintage ribbon microphone featuring balanced wiring produced by the BBC and Marconi that became an interface metaphor for sound recording), these software instruments are free to install and easy to use.

Both work within a dedicated (AU-, AAX-, and VST-compatible) plugin possessing a strikingly simple user interface, invented in collaboration with UsTwo, one of the world’s best design and user-experience agencies, also responsible for making Spitfire Audio’s award-winning HANS ZIMMER STRINGS spectacular string sample library so simple to use.

Hollin Jones was classically trained as a piano player but found the lure of blues and jazz too much to resist. Graduating from bands to composition then production, he relishes the chance to play anything with keys.
A sometime lecturer in videographics, music production and photography post production, Hollin has been a freelance writer on music technology and Apple topics for well over a decade, along the way publishing several books on audio software. He has been lead writer at a number of prominent music and technology publications.
As well as consultancy, full-time journalism, video production and professional photography, he occasionally plays Hammond, Rhodes and other keys for people who ask nicely.
Hollin is Contributing Editor at Ask.Audio.

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